Synonyms for unnecessary
- adjective
Most common
All synonyms
Adjective
1. Superfluous — not needed or necessary
superfluous, needless, unneeded, redundant, gratuitous, inessential, useless, excess, uncalled-for, dispensable, spare, expletive, supernumerary, supererogatory, escapable, omissible, innecessary rare
Other
Definitions
- adj. 1
Not needed or necessary.
The automatic child-frightener made clowns unnecessary.
Related words
- Word family
- unnecessaries unnecessarily unnecessariness
Example sentences
- needless Needless to say, that's not going to happen today.
- redundant The company made most of its employees redundant.
- superfluous I agree that the feelings are indeed superfluous.
- unneeded Unneeded gifts can be re-gifted.
- additional There are additional students to my Spanish class.
- unessential Jewelry and perfume are unessential. Normal humans don't need them.
Popularity over time
| Word | 1850 → 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| unnecessary | falling | |
| needless | falling | |
| redundant | rising | |
| superfluous | steady | |
| unneeded | falling | |
| additional | falling |
Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.
By length
- 5 letters
- spare1
- 6 letters
- excess2
- 7 letters
- useless2
- 8 letters
- needless2, unneeded3
- 9 letters
- redundant3, expletive3, escapable, omissible
- 10 letters
- additional4, gratuitous4
- 11 letters
- superfluous3, dispensable4, inessential, unessential, innecessary
- 13 letters
- supernumerary
- 14 letters
- supererogatory
The small number after each word is its number of syllables (excess2 = 2 syllables).